Invitation by Russian in Edinburgh
Monday 16 March 1970
On arrival in Edinburgh, I made my way to the University's Pollack Hall where a room had been allocated to me. I had some interesting conversations over dinner in the Hall and retired to bed.
Tuesday 17 March 1970
First thing in the morning I went into centre of Edinburgh by bus to obtain copies of my submission on Privacy to the Home Secretary (James Callaghan) via my M.P., James Allason. In a covering letter to James Allason I wrote:-
I would have liked to have included more examples but I have been called away to a conference at Edinburgh at short notice and think it best, to avoid delay, to send you the paper as it is. I shall be in Edinburgh until Sat 21st.
I posted the submission.
Back to Pollock Hall for breakfast. Had a conversation
with P. Rainger of the BBC Designs Department about the IEE Electronics
Divisional Board and about Marketing/Engineering issues. This was the first
of several stimulating encounters with him during the Symposium.
I attended the Opening Ceremony of The International Symposium on "Management and Economics in the Electronics Industry". I noted speeches by the IEE President, Lord Polwarth and Sir Basil Dene - I had not then had any correspondence with the IEE's President, D. Edmundson, and I did not know the other two Openers at all. The keynote speaker, Lord Beeching, I only knew from media coverage. Not all speeches and contributions were published in the Proceedings (IEE Conference Publication No.62) but my filofax notes on content are available.
At lunch I met for the first time Hans Motz, Reader in Electrical Engineering at the University of Oxford. Hans Motz introduced the topic of Design into the conversation and of course that got me going. We had a good discussion, in the course of which he mentioned the Atheneum, of which he was a member.
In the afternoon I went to the first few of the many sessions of the Symposium, making numerous notes to provide material for the two articles I was writing.
Later, back at Pollack Hall, as I started on my way to early evening dinner I came across a man standing just outside my bedroom door. He motioned that he was waiting for a kettle to boil in an adjacent kitchen and then, in very poor English, explained that he was from Russia. He invited me to a drink in his room, which turned out to be next to mine. I explained I was on my way to dinner and suggested he do likewise but he declined. He suggested that I should call on him after dinner, to which arrangement I agreed. If this text is giving the impression of an easy conversation it does not reflect the reality of much gesticulating, fumbling for words and trying to make the same point in different ways on both our parts.
At dinner I conversed with Francis Oakes who was accompanied by his wife Iris. Francis mentioned Willis Jackson and made some other comments which led me to wonder about him. Later during the Symposium he and his wife offered me a place in their car for the journey home (they lived in nearby Welwyn) but I declined
After dinner I knocked on the door of the next room and was warmly invited in. I found there were three Russians within, both newcomers speaking much better English than the first. They had, they said, come at short notice to the Symposium and were accommodated in the three rooms next to mine. The first Russian made up for his lack of English by being very hospitable. There was a great slab of lean pork on the bench from which he cut a hunk and handed it to me on the knife. He then gave me a vodka and a Russian cigarette and the four of us chatted away as best we could.
I learned that the first Russian was a senior civil servant, heading a Department in the Soviet Ministry of Electronics in Moscow. One of the others was Alexander, who was with a factory in Leningrad, while the third was Victor, who I think said he was with Moscow University. It was probably Alexander who mentioned he had previously spent some time at the University of Swansea. At one stage I asked the civil servant to write his details in my notebook. He willingly complied (below, left) but I found I could not read it so I asked one of the others to translate the statement into my Filofax wallet (below, right).
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Because of my late registration I was listed in Part 3,
(i.e. the second supplement) of the list of delegates. The civil servant
and Alexander were also listed in Part 3, their entries being:-
A A Sharipov Ministry Elektronik Industry, Moscow, Kitajski 7, U.S.S.R.
A Borovskoi "Svetlana" Works, Leningrad, L-156, Svetlanovski prospeki 2, U.S.S.R.
I did not find an entry for Victor in any of the lists of participants but, as I discovered later, MOD/MI5 knew of him.
That evening we all met again at the Civic Reception by the Provost Marshal (?) at the Guildhall and compared the educational systems of our two countries.
I was pleasurably surprised to find Professor Joan Woodward at the Reception and we had an enjoyable conversation. I think this was the only event she attended. I encountered no one from M.I. throughout the Symposium.
I was pleased to learn that a place had been found for me, long after the deadline had expired, to attend the Symposium Dinner at the MacRobert Pavilion at Ingliston. If I recall correctly, a member of the IEE Secretariat (probably Ernie Mills) had given up his place so that I could attend.
Among other occasional contacts were Prof. C. Rodenburg of Twente University, who had attended my 1968 Conference on Electronics Design at Cambridge, Prof. K. Hoselitz of Mullard, a Mrs. Holmes of Electronic Equipment News (who said she came to all my Conferences!), E. Allard from Harpenden and Prof. Farvis.
Wednesday 18 March 1970
It was in the morning of Wednesday 18th that the civil servant Russian made a beeline for me as I made my way to one of the sessions. He had in his hand a piece of paper which he showed to me as he spoke, saying something like "You come Moscow. You be my guest." On the paper was written the words VISITING PROFESSOR; I had the impression that he had either been busy with a dictionary or he had got someone else to write out the words he was supposed to convey. There was no doubt that his approaches (there were two more to come) were purposeful and specific to me.
The next one in fact took place as the afternoon sessions were about to begin. The civil servant Russian came up and asked me for some leaflet or other and then made a comment which because of antecedents and what followed must be regarded as highly significant; he observed that Professor Charles Oatley of the University of Cambridge Department of Engineering (who was about to speak in one of the parallel sessions) was a very good man and sound in what he says. Professor Oatley had been guest of honour at the 1968 Conference dinner in Trinity College, Cambridge.
Thursday 19 March 1970
The third deliberate approach took place the following morning, the 19th, when the civil servant Russian approached me and said something like these words - "You learn Russian. Come to Moscow this year. Come as my guest. Aeroflot will bring you with your wife and children".
Friday 20 March 1970
I continued attending the Symposium Sessions to the end
and I think it was in the afternoon of the last day that there was a further
contact with the Russian civil servant, this time quite accidental. I came
across him in the driveway of the Hall of Residence and could see that he
was suffering from a heavy cold. The other two Russians were no longer
around. I went out and bought some Aspro which I took to his room. He
thereupon insisted on wrapping up two tins of fish in a Russian newspaper
and handing the package to me as a present for my wife. The tins had a
picture of tall building (which I took to be the Kremlin) on them with a red
star surmounting it.
I felt I should return the compliment so I rushed out
once more and bought two tins of boiled sweets for his children. Thus ended
this strange series of encounters. I never saw any of the Russians again.
I guess the children of the USSR Ministry man enjoyed their gift from the UK far more than my wife enjoyed hers from Russia. Unfortunately, on examination of the gift tins the ends were found to be bulging. I took one of the tins to a local UDC Officer (John Snowdon) to see if the contents could be analysed but apparently the cost would be too prohibitive. There was a hiss when I opened each tin so we disposed of the contents.
HANS MOTZ
I did not know it at the time but another development at the Symposium turned out to have USSR connotations. After my first encounter with Hans Motz, at which he got me going on the topic of Design, we met and had long conversations on two or three other occasions, in the course of which he told me about a novel he was writing. The plot had something to do with a man who considered himself to be manipulated and how in fighting back he had greatly enhanced his experience and career prospects.
I responded to Hans Motz's synopsis by saying that I had been thinking up a plot for a novel; mine was about a man who realised he was being manipulated. He had received all sorts of favourable hints and had tracked their source down to one person because only the two of them knew of matters being referred to in the hints. He greatly distrusted the source person and so ignored or even responded in the opposite way to that indicated by the hints. The manipulated man was religious and prayed to God for guidance. He then discovered that the person he had thought to be the source had met with an accident long before and had survived virtually as a cabbage, quite unable to initiate any manipulations whatsoever. At the end of the novel the man would be puzzling out what it all means. Hans Motz had the goodness to say that my plot was much more powerful than his.
Before the end of the Symposium Hans Motz asked if I would like to dine as his guest in St. Catherine's College on May Day and stay overnight. I said I would be interested.
Whether he ever published his novel I do not know.
[I did not think of his and my own still dormant novel until nearly two decades later; it was natural that it should come immediately to mind when I heard that Ray Burnett had died while staying overnight in his Oxford college after attending a Dinner].
One more point must be mentioned about the Symposium, namely that I was later told that I had been expected to choose different sessions to those I actually attended ‑ as though someone had mapped out my likely movements in advance and had then obtained information on what had taken place.
Saturday 21 March 1970
I flew back to Heathrow with many of the Symposium participants, then to home. There was a letter [20 March] awaiting me from James Allason thanking me very much for my paper on the invasion of privacy by psychological means, adding:‑
I have passed this to the Home Secretary, with a view to its being considered by the Committee that he is setting up.
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